with Roman coins of the 4th century. On the
continent, however, additional types are found that do not occur in
Britain--one of these is a drinking glass in the form of a hunting horn
with glass threads forming an ornamental design on the outside. From the
wide distribution of these types, it seems certain that they sprang
originally from a common centre, and the slender evidence available on
the subject seems to point to that centre having been somewhere on the
lower Rhine. Although glass seems to have been popular and by no means
rare as a material for drinking vessels, other materials also were used.
A large number of the smaller pottery vessels would serve such a
purpose, and in one grave at Broomfield in Essex two small wooden cups
were found which, from their small size and thinness, were no doubt used
for liquid.

Of the later Saxon domestic utensils nothing remains, the habit of
burying such objects with the dead having ceased on the gradual
introduction of Christianity through the country. Manuscripts are our
only resource, and they are not only of great rarity, but in the main
rudely and conventionally drawn in their details. In those of the 9th to
the 11th century various simple forms are seen, some resembling our
modern tumbler in shape, others like a dice box. Horns as drinking
vessels certainly retained their popularity at all times, surviving
especially among the northern nations, and many of the vessels of this
form were no doubt actual horns, though horn-shaped vessels were often
made of other materials. Until we come to the 13th and 14th centuries
there is an absolute dearth of the actual objects used in domestic life.
And here we begin with plate used in the service of the church.

Church vessels.

The drinking vessel possessing the most unbroken history is doubtless
the chalice of the Christian Church.[4] Like other ceremonial objects it
was no doubt differentiated from the drinking cups in ordinary use by a
gradual transition, and in the early centuries it is unlikely that it
differed either in form or material from the ordinary domestic vessel of
the time. Figures of such vessels, apparently with a symbolic intention,
are found upon early Christian tombstones, and it has been contended
that the vessel indicated the grave of a priest. While this may be the
case, the similarity of the vessel represented to the ordinary
non-liturgical form renders the conclusion somewhat weak. Among objects
fou